Driving Through SW Kentucky

Amish Buggy Tracks on Side of Highway

Jefferson Davis Memorial
Tobacco Fields (Note some drying on rack)

After we left Tennessee yesterday, we drove north over the border and into Kentucky. We had visited Lexington & surrounds last year, so this time we headed towards the NW corner. Once I map out our route, Murray then peruses a book Jan & Dick gave us for Christmas last year titled ‘Most Scenic Drives in America’ and if he finds interesting drives or places of interest nearby, we refine our route. We try to get off the major highways and see a bit of the farmland and little towns that often get bypassed by the interstates. On this occasion he read that the Jefferson Davis Memorial and Amish country were in the vicinity, so we adjusted our route to go through Hopkinsville and take route 68 E to Russellville. What a pretty drive it turned out to be. We were on the lookout for the familiar Amish buggies we were used to seeing up in Pennsylvania, but although we saw their tracks and horse droppings, we didn’t actually see any buggies on the road.

The crops we usually see on the roads are corn, soya beans or wheat, so it was interesting to start seeing tobacco fields. Apparently Kentucky has an ideal climate for growing tobacco which is its main crop contributing to 50% of agricultural income. At this time of the year tobacco is being harvested and smoked, so lots of wooden shacks in the field were ‘smoking’. It was overcast, warm, and with high humidity, so the smoke hung in the air contributing to the misty haze in photos of this area.

We did a tour up into the 351 ft high Jefferson Davis Memorial and were thankful they provided an elevator! It is 2/3 the size but otherwise a carbon copy of the Washington Monument. The Washington Monument was created to honour the first US President George Washington, and this monument was to honour the first (and only) Confederate President, Jefferson Davis. Hence the scaled replica! Interestingly, Davis is not listed as a US President as the Confederate States of the Civil War were seceded from the Union at that time. Davis was born and lived in a cabin that is now home to a Baptist Church nearby. Interestingly Abraham Lincoln was born only 100 miles away and while he was President of the United States (Union), Davis was his counterpart in the Confederate States of America, so Kentucky had raised two Presidents who served concurrently!